I love Nero Wolfe. I own every single Nero Wolfe mystery, either in hardcover or (sometimes crumbling) paperback — at least the ones by Rex Stout. (Note: I hated the TV series. I thought it was a terrible interpretation of the characters.) I love the books, I can quote many of Wolfe’s best lines — I even have The… Read more
The blurb on the front of the book says it all: A contract killer, a detective, and a transgender sex worker: an unlikely team fighting crime and corruption in contemporary Athens. Athenian Blues by Pol Koutsakis is kind of a buddy story – three good friends, solving a murder. One, Drag, is a cop – a brusque homicide detective who is… Read more
I saw a documentary a few years ago called The Imposter. In it, French con-man Frédéric Bourdin impersonates a boy from Texas who went missing when he was 13 years old. I wondered what would make a person do something so awful – torture a family who had already been through so much. In Only Daughter by Anna Snoekstra, we get a glimpse into that… Read more
The Dark Side by Anthony O’Neill is possibly the most fun bit of sci-fi I’ve read in ages. I laughed a lot, cringed a little, and found a whole new set of rules to live by – The Brass Code. The Brass Code is invoked by an evil, amnesiac android named Leonardo Black. Some of my favorites: Don’t take.… Read more
What if the apocalypse came and you didn’t even notice? What if you were camping in the Canadian wilderness or on walkabout in the Australian Outback and you didn’t know that the aliens had landed? What if you were up at your cabin by the lake and you couldn’t understand why no one was picking up their phones? In The Last… Read more
Strange fact: as a kid, I had goldfish named Kris and Rita. I knew who Kris Kristofferson was, and I had some vague idea who Rita Coolidge was – mostly I knew there was an epic romance there. That more than anything prompted me to read Delta Lady: A Memoir by Rita Coolidge with Michael Walker. What I liked about the way Coolidge… Read more
I love a good apocalypse and this might be my favorite! A pandemic, the infected wearing the plague on their skin in bands of black and gold. Fire! Instead of wasting away, riddled by disease, turning into a zombie, these victims go out in a glorious blaze of heat and flame, taking with them anything flammable that happens to be… Read more
This is yet another book that made me say, “How did I not know about this series?” Hot, tattooed Irish guy with a big dog, a sword, and a lot of Celtic magic at his fingertips – what’s not to love? Hounded was fun from beginning to end, and adds yet another series to my endless TBR pile. “When people ask how… Read more
I’m coming to this series a little late, I’m afraid. I read Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey and immediately thought of half a dozen people that I just knew would love it. Problem is, most of them have already read it! But if you aren’t familiar with this series, about a magician/hitman returned from Hell to seek vengeance on the folks who… Read more
This was a great airport book – totally took my mind off delays, screaming kids, annoying airport tv, etc. Instead, while I was reading Baggage by S.G. Redling, I could spend my time yelling (just inside my head) at Anna, who really hates February: Over the years, terrible things keep happening to Anna Ray on February 17. First, there was the… Read more